What puzzles me is that from all the coverage I've seen of this visit, no one seems to have questioned whether Guantanamo could have been tidied up before the guests arrived. As though a group of U.S. Senators visiting pre-announced would have uncovered naked detainees being sexually humiliated while electrocuted during simulated drownings.

What puzzles me is that from all the coverage I've seen of this visit, no one seems to have questioned whether Guantanamo could have been tidied up before the guests arrived.

Instead what jumped out at them was lemon chicken dinners, ice cream treats, recreational time, detainees living in clean facilities, and receiving a full Muslim religious package of Koran, prayer rug, beads, and prayer oils, with an arrow in every cell pointing to Mecca, and the call to prayer being played five times daily. And none of that is getting to the state-of-the art medical and dental care that each detainee receives, far surpassing anything any of them has ever gotten in their entire lives.

And then, with all that, consider who exactly these detainees are, and how they have behaved, which is why they are at Gitmo, and how they continue to behave, even while they are at Gitmo. Of the about 70,000 battlefield captures that were made in Afghanistan, only a tiny percentage, about 800, were eventually sent to Gitmo. These were the worst of the worst. It isn't hyperbole to simply say that they are terrorist thugs. Detainees fight their captors at every opportunity, with a daily barrage of feces, urine, semen, and spit hurled at the staff. Detainees openly brag of their desire to kill Americans, promising things like, when released, they will find the guards in their homes through the internet, break into their houses at night, and "cut the throats of them and their families like sheep," or claiming authority and vindication to kill women, children, and other innocents who oppose their jihadist mission authorized by the Koran, the same one that hangs in every cell from a specially-designed holder intended to protect it from a touching the cell floor – all provided at U.S. taxpayer expense. They attack guards whenever the soldiers enter their cells, trying to reach up under protective facemasks to gouge eyes and tear mouths. They make weapons and try to stab the guards or grab and break limbs as the guards pass them food. There is a good reason these unlawful combatants are being confined. They are evil and dangerous individuals.

More than 200 of them have already been released back to their home country, if the U.S. is assured that the detainees would not be tortured by local authorities upon return. These men were freed because they were deemed by ongoing official military review processes to no longer pose a threat, or to possess no useful intelligence. And this process has proven too generous at times: more than 10 released GITMO detainees have been killed or recaptured fighting Americans or have been identified as resuming terrorist activities.

So question your assumptions and check your premises, my friend. And consider who it is that wants you to believe that there is anything akin to torture going on at Gitmo, and consider what their motivations --their ulterior motives-- might be for saying that.

Jaybird, I hate to bring up this point again, but I feel I must... this is Jack Bog's Blog not Jaybird's Blog.

Yeah I got carried away. Like you say, it is his blog, and he can remove it if he sees fit.

And Amnesty International is not satisfied with the findings? Shocking! The whining continues...

Great post, Jaybird. I agree completely with your assessment.

10 October 2003:
Red Cross blasts Guantanamo
Christophe Girod - the senior Red Cross official in Washington - said it was unacceptable that the 600 detainees should be held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without legal safeguards.

The Red Cross is the only organisation with access to the detainees.

His criticism came as a group of American former judges, diplomats and military officers called on the US Supreme Court to examine the legality of holding the foreign nationals for almost two years, without trial, charge or access to lawyers.

8 July 2004:
Q&A: US Supreme Court Guantanamo ruling
The overall ruling of the court was: "United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay."

27 June 2005:
Guantanamo detainees remain in legal limbo
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - One year ago, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that opened the door to federal courts for 500-plus prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to challenge their captivity.

But 200 detainees, including some held more than three years, who have filed habeas corpus petitions in federal court haven't been able to get through that door. After months of procedural battles, no judge has heard the merits of a single Guantanamo case...

"Our whole system is to get people to determine what the facts are, charge them and move ahead," said Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, at a recent hearing. "What's going on here? This seems to be a horribly slow process."

How far we've come from the days when Ben Franklin pronounced: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

But I guess 9/11 "changed everything," perhaps even the ideals that our country was founded on.

Ever since the two hired Bush-bitches were outed in South Dakota, whose pre-election day job was trolling the discussion blogs tossing in lies and libel about Senator Daschle, the jaybird's and Scott R.'s and chris mcmullen's waste material defecating the same turd words here, and around, are recognized for their same Limboughtomy stink Word up, boys, you have put so much shit in your ears it is coming out your mouth and it's all over your fingers on the keyboard. Perhaps mental sicko's can be allowed out of lockdown asylum, and if they keep with their own kind downwind, but no way do they get a ballot.

Disregarding the delusional dummies, there are facts to follow in reality, (which our bubblewrapped Oregon senator(s) do not keep up with, Jack, whether in reverie or romanticism or wistful wish-waste for the way Republicans used to be, it's hard to say):

USA Reported to Have Confirmed Torture

Le Nouvel Observateur
Sunday 26 June 2005

The United States has acknowledged to the UN that there are cases of torture inflicted on prisoners in Afghanistan and in Iraq, as well as on the American base at Guantánamo, a member of the UN's Committee against Torture pronounced Friday, June 24.

According to this official - who wished to remain anonymous - in a report handed over to the Committee, Washington acknowledged that the abusive treatment inflicted on prisoners at the hands of American forces could be considered torture in the sense of the International Convention against Torture.

The United States' Mission to the United Nations in Geneva could not be reached Friday evening to comment on this information. ...

Cui bono?

jaybird notes that the "worst of the worst" are staying at Guantanamo, but conveniently leaves out that Hamdi was released without being found guilty of a crime, and the most recent "releasee" was likewise found to be innocent. Oops.
"Ex-Gitmo Inmate Acquitted of All Charges"

Is that post from Tenskwatawa really going to stand? Fouler than foul. Sir, you are boring and drunk on yourself at the felony level near always, but the personal attacks and profanity this time are beyond even your pale.

Jaybird: Durbin said no such things. He just listed what actually has happened at Guantanamo according to their own logbooks, and asked if you read this without knowing who was doing it, would you think it was being done by Americans or Nazis? I certainly wouldn't want anyone thinking this was the work of Americans, he said.

Also, putting chicken on the menu and Korans in the cells doesn't mean the logbooks are wrong or that the missing hours in the logbooks must have been for when playtime happened. If these people are bad, charge them. And explain what this means: "And consider who it is that wants you to believe that there is anything akin to torture going on at Gitmo, and consider what their motivations --their ulterior motives-- might be for saying that." What's the Red Cross's ulterior motive? What are the ulterior motives of the people writing the logbooks, for that matter?

"Correction: Wednesday, June 29:

An article on Tuesday about the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay paraphrased incorrectly from a comment by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, one of several senators who inspected the military detention facility during a weekend trip. He said he felt good about the work of three American guards he met there. He did not say he was pleased with the overall handling of the detainees."

From the bottom of the NYtimes article

Maybe we are back to a partisan split.